Death of a detainee at CIA hands

More than seven years ago, a suspected Afghan militant was brought to a dimly lit CIA compound northeast of the airport in Kabul. The CIA called it the Salt Pit. Inmates knew it as the dark prison. Inside a chilly cell, the man was shackled and left half-naked. He was found dead, exposed to the cold, in the early hours of Nov. 20, 2002.

The Salt Pit death was the only fatality known to have occurred inside the secret prison network the CIA operated abroad after the Sept. 11 attacks. The death had strong repercussions inside the CIA. It helped lead to a review that uncovered abuses in detention and interrogation procedures, and forced the agency to change those procedures.

Little has emerged about the Afghan’s death, which the Justice Department is investigating. The Associated Press has learned the dead man’s name, as well as new details about his capture in Pakistan and his Afghan imprisonment.

The man was Gul Rahman (gool RAHK’-mahn), a suspected militant captured on Oct. 29, 2002, a U.S. official familiar with the case confirmed. The official said Rahman was taken during an operation against Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, an insurgent group headed by Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (gool-boo-DEEN’ hek-mat-YAR’) and allied with al-Qaida.

Rahman’s identity also was confirmed by a former U.S. official familiar with the case, as well as by several other former and current officials. A reference to Rahman’s death also turned up in a recently declassified government document.

The CIA’s program of waterboarding and other harsh treatment of suspected terrorists has been debated since it ended in 2006. The Salt Pit case stands as a cautionary tale about the unfettered use of such practices. The Obama administration shut the CIA’s prisons last year.

It remains uncertain whether any intelligence officers have been punished as a result of the Afghan’s death, raising questions about the CIA’s accountability in the case. The CIA’s then-station chief in Afghanistan was promoted after Rahman’s death, and the officer who ran the prison went on to other assignments, including one overseas, several former intelligence officials said.

Fresh details about the Salt Pit case were assembled from documents and interviews with both militants and officials in Afghanistan and Pakistan and with more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials. The Americans spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the case remain classified.

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Gannon reported from Islamabad. Associated Press writer Robert H. Reid in Kabul and investigative researcher Randy Herschaft in New York contributed to this report.

3 COMMENTS

I must agree with Woody and Dejavu. If citizens of the USA even have hearts & minds left after they’ve watched Fox Gnus for so many years. We strain out the gnat of sex offenders in the USA, grousing and having a fit over it, then turn our backs and refuse to see when our own soldiers and hired mercenaries by our government do so much worse than we can even dream of to innocents! We have an EVIL GOVERNMENT running this country.

Just wait until it comes out about the rape and sodomy of detainees children 15 years of age and under. They didn’t just rape and torture detainees. And when we see how nearly 99% of those detained were actually innocent, well it’s no wonder we are losing the hearts and minds of the people abroad and at home.

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